MEXICO CITY
Federal police detained a former police official implicated in the disappearance of the 43 students last September.
The Mexican government said Francisco Salgado Vallardares, former deputy chief of operations in Iguala, played an integral part in organized crime and kidnapping.
Salgado Valladares, who had been on the run for almost eight months before his arrest Thursday in Cuernavaca, Morelos, received $40,000 dollars (600,000 pesos) per month from the drug cartel, in exchange for offering protection, said authorities, citing statements from persons detained in the case.
The investigation into the missing students from the Ayotzinapa teacher college revealed that Salgado Valladares ordered the former director of public security of nearby Cocula to oversee “the transfer of approximately 13 students of la Loma de los Coyotes to be handed over to members of organized crime,” referring to a borough of Iguala.
He had been hiding with several family members in the states of Guerrero and Morelos.
The former Iguala police chief is also implicated in the students’ disappearance and remains wanted by authorities.
Students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero, disappeared in Iguala after a clash with the police.
According to the official version of what happened, local police handed over the students to the United Warriors cartel who killed and burned them in Cocula, a city approximately 13 miles (21 kilometres) from Iguala.
The former mayor of Iguala and his wife has been detained for their ties to local organized crime. They are believed to be the masterminds of the abduction.
Relatives of the students, intellectuals and Argentine scientist investigating the case have all rejected the official version of events.
